It’s day three and I have no idea what day it is! This day has been a tremendous reminder of just how much I am in desperate need of the community. There is no freedom apart from the community (i.e. the body of believers, which fosters confession and communal putting to death of the flesh). My wife and I are all caught up on sleep deprivation. It is really hard for me to think of catching up on sleep as obedience to God. But it is! If I am called to be ready for whatever God has for me for the day (and it probably has something to do with being an attentive and present listener to another person), then I must be operating at optimal health. I must eat, exercise, rest, and repeat so that I am at optimal health. And that is what we did this morning. We caught up on sleep.
It wasn’t too long into the day before I felt my flesh start to kick. That silly old enemy told me to become angry, but I preached the gospel to myself and renounced that old idol of control and conform. This half ounce of anger in my heart was a distraction in the morning worship. I dozed off for a second during the reflective music portion. By the time we transitioned to the male/female breakout prayer session I felt that my attention was back in tune with the Spirit. I was focused. I said to myself, “I’m back. Here we go, thank you, Lord, for your forgiveness. Let’s do this!” We were guided to form a circle and silent pray for the brother on the right. No words were spoken, just prayer to the living God for 1-2 min and then to move to the next person until all the men were covered. The words came to me for each brother. The Spirit was at work in my soul and giving me exactly how to pray.
This morning session enabled me to experience the “Kairotic time,” which was explained to us as a mix of kairos (appointed time/season) with chronological (sequential time). A kairotic time is a time where heaven and earth intersect. Hence, a time “here on earth as it is in heaven!” I love this idea because it is a reminder of what the Gospel is; namely, experiencing the freedom that we can look forward to in heaven, but here on earth. Where in the world did we get the idea that I have to die in order to experience freedom? Does not the gospel mean that I can experience heaven here on earth? I think so. I think the gospel is that “good.” We don’t have to wait.
There was a portion of one of the sessions where we covered many Bible passages and even broke them down exegetical/hermeneutical style. I have to admit, I get excited when we tap into disciplines with which I am familiar. I’m a bible study junkie and trained in systematic theology. But the phrase that knocked me upside the head was, “It’s not whether or not you know these things, it's whether or not you are living them out.” Wow! How easy has it been for me my whole life to be comfortable in knowing versus living/application?
Throughout the discussion on getting to root causes and breaking down common lies that the enemy feeds us all: The fear of exposure, the fear of failure, the fear of rejection, the fear of condemnation, and the fear that nobody understands are all mitigated with truth. The exercise included taking a sticker dot and placing it on ourselves for every lie that we have believed. For every lie mentioned in the lecture, we were to put a sticker on ourselves if we had ever believed it. I was covered in stickers! Then we listened to a reading of Max Lucado’s “You Are Special.”
After the exercise, we broke into two groups - men and women. As the contemplative music played in the background we began to pray for each other and, as priests, took off each other’s dots. As I took dots off my brothers I declared truth! “you are holy…you are clean…you are healed…you are a child of God…you are perfect.” As the men finished up I looked over to the women and rejoiced at the sight of women surrounding my wife and with tears in all of their eyes, embrace each other celebrating and rejoicing in the truth that there are no more dots!
This is what community should look like. Kinda like the Wesleyan group method of gathering and simply discussing the condition of the soul. How are you doing? is a very powerful question in a roundtable of believers who are not afraid to be broken with others. And Spiritual Direction is embedded in the true community. Unfortunately, post reformation, the reality of spiritual direction began to dwindle. Not to mention the fact that the advent of the printing press/Gutenberg press privatized Christianity. Pre-Gutenberg, communities had to gather to collect and hear stories of how the Lord was working in and through each other. I can imagine the revelation that came as a result of the printing press (yes! Now I can have my private devotional time anytime I want! This is great!). Little did the Church know what impact the convenience of a printed book would have on the “gathering” of the saints. But God can redeem and revive community for today. Amen!
The day concluded with the “Family Sculpture” exercise. Several of us formed a live sculpture of our family background. I had several people play a scene that is taking place in my family right now. There were three family members on their knees facing the cross with arms around each other. There was one family member about to join the group before the cross and there were others in the background. It was a picture of imminent revival that is coming to my family. It is a picture that briefly mentions brokenness, but quickly highlights divine redemption and restoration that takes place when people are obedient and postured to allow God to have his way.
This is always explained better over a cup of coffee :)
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